Minister for Community Safety Roseanna Cunningham has cautiously welcomed figures showing a decrease in racist incidents recorded by the police in Scotland in 2010-11.

Ms Cunningham said that there are still far too many hate crimes taking place across the country and warned against complacency in light of more up-to-date Crown Office prosecution statistics published last month. These showed an increase in the number of charges reported to the Procurator Fiscal by the police and other agencies for racism and other forms of hatred in 2011-12.

The ‘Racist Incidents Recorded by the Police in Scotland, 2010-11' statistics show:

On 10 May, a Confiscation Order for £81,744.68 was made against a Scottish man, Mr Paul Ross. Mr Ross was previously sentenced at Elgin Sheriff Court on 15 July 2009 to four years imprisonment, after he pleaded guilty to the charge of producing and being in possession of a controlled Class A drug, Methylamphetamine. The relevant sections of the criminal law are Section 4(1), 4(2)(a), 5(1), 5(2) and Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

New figures show that there has been a significant increase in recent years in the number of women in Scottish prisons.